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Memora-b-ballia
For two days beginning Dec. 7, Leland's, the Long Island auction house, will stage one of its regular sales of sports memorabilia. (You can find out more at www.lelands.com.) And while most of the booty to go on the block relates to baseball, a handful of lots will feature items from the world of basketball. Of course there'll be plenty of Michael Jordan: stinkin' vine out of M.J.'s closet, business suits and warm-up suits alike; a Jordan autographed golf ball; even a 1980 copy of The Spinnaker, the yearbook from Laney High School in Wilmington, N.C. That wasn't even Jordan's senior year, and the reserve bid is set at a cool $300. Leland's bills a ticket from "the game of the century," UCLA's date with Houston in the Astrodome in 1968, with hyperventilating catalog copy: "Who could forget it?" Maybe Lew Alcindor and Elvin Hayes couldn't forget it, but someone apparently could, for the ducat is unused. Still another lot consists of a pair of crutches Wilt Chamberlain used in rehab during the 1969-70 season, with a photo of the Dipper in physical therapy. But I wouldn't trade the hoop detritus I've accumulated over the years for any of the above. In my office I've got Russian nesting dolls depicting Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird -- in that descending order of size. There's a mounted and framed one-dinar Croatian postage stamp honoring the late Drazen Petrovic. A page of a calendar features the hoop-obsessive King of Bhutan in a traditional gho, cradling a basketball as he speaks to a crowd of schoolchildren. A print of a black-and-white photo, taken by Rich Clarkson, the Eisenstadt of the Final Four, captures the Kentucky bench moments after the Wildcats' loss to Texas Western in 1966. A presentation box holds two Chinese worry balls, each decoratively touched up to resemble basketballs. A lapel pin depicts the Brazilian flag and the uniform number of Oscar Schmidt, the legendary South American scorer, from whom I secured this souvenir by trade in the athletes village in Barcelona. Exotic T-shirts, whether featuring the summer league at Pearl Street Community Center in Waterbury, Conn. ("Swish is a Summer Sound"), or the Grateful Dead-inspired Lithuanian national team that marched to an Olympic bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics while wearing tie-dyed duds, are among my prized possessions, too. But the gemstone of my collection -- its Honus Wagner tobacco card -- is a piece I found at a flea market near Union Station in Indianapolis many years ago. It's a plastic ashtray, from a set of four Indiana Pacers ashtrays, graced with a photo of the fleshy, ABA-era mug of George McGinnis. The charm of this piece lies not merely in its status as high kitsch. It's in McGinnis' rep as a notorious chainsmoker who sometimes snuck ciggy butts in practice. And so, in the spirit of that cheesy objet d'art, may I urge Leland's to put out an APB for real collectors items? These aren't things likely to wind up in the main exhibit hall in Springfield, but that's the nature of their appeal. U.S. coach Henry Iba's wallet, stolen with that gold-medal game at the Munich Olympics. The tire iron Marvin (Bad News) Barnes used on erstwhile Providence teammate Larry Ketvirtis. The shades Indiana undergraduate Kent Harvey wore when he provoked coach Bob Knight into one arm grab beyond zero tolerance. A really collectible artifact needs a little notoriety. Perhaps one of these days Leland's will offer more than Wilt's big chrome crutches. Perhaps we'll have a chance to bid on his little black book. Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff is author of the forthcoming
Called for Traveling: A Year in the Country of Basketball. He can be
reached at awolff@si.timeinc.com.
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